What is known about this "prototype" armored car produced for the AEF but rejected?

Fred Crismon in US Military Wheeled Vehicles says it was requested by the AEF's Service of Supply but Pershing rejected it. Crismon also states that it was made on a light White truck chassis and carried the number "US 4053" on the hood.

I have seen a couple of web pages that have referred to it as a "Model 1918" and a "White AEF" but I cannot trace either of those names to a period source. Does anyone have any info on vehicle regarding manufacture, designation, and /or specifications?

Pershing did not specifically reject that specific armored car. In 1917 when the AEF was first deployed to France, the senior officers held discussions with French and British officials who suggested that armored cars were no longer effective in the existing battlefield conditions. Therefore, Pershing informed Washington that he saw no need for the acquisition of armored cars for the AEF. Several manufacturers at the time were promoting their products in DC, and Congress was starting to dump money into the War Department budget for this purpose. The armored car funding was used in 1917 and 1918 for tanks. The design in the photograph was a local effort in France from 1918 for convoy escort. It was apparently built of wood and was simply a mock-up. I don't think anyone has found any documentation on the design in the archives. I recently went through the Ordnance technical reports at NARA regarding tanks and armored cars and there was virtually nothing from the war years. The museum at Rock Island Arsenal also has practically nothing. I was doing this work for a forthcoming book in the Osprey New Vanguard series "Early American Armor (2): Armored Cars" due out in Jan 2018. Vol. 1 on tanks 1915-40 came out earlier this year.

I have been working on an article on White Armored Cars for Military Vehicles Magazine, and I kept stumbling into the afore-mentioned image. I had obtained a copy from Crismon's original research. I do have a fair number of original images of US armored cars (White, King, Jeffrey, Simplus, etc) in my personal collection that I would be more than happy to supply to you for your project if you haven't submitted your manuscript yet Drop me a note if you think they would be of use.

My manuscript went in to Osprey beginning of year. The usual problem with the Osprey NVG is the "ten pounds of stuff in a one pound sack". The format only allows about 40 photos and I had a few hundred. My only real gap was a single awful photo of the Holt Wheeled Steam tank. I have an original cyanograph of the image, but the quality isn't wonderful. Sad to say, the main APG collection at NARA lack this image even though there are others from the original 1924 series. There will be a few surprises in the book including a new photo of the US Army armored truck in Tientsin, some previously unpublished views of commercial armored car offerings from 1914-1916, etc. I also have some new material on actual armored car/scout car production numbers from the 1930s.